Take a flutter on love

Potential love birds Jamie Kelly of Ireland and Katie Moreau of Nova Scotia are the focus of media attention and now a betting pool on how their romance will unfold. (TODAY FM)

Who says you can’t put a price on love?

Ireland’s largest betting company is doing just that, taking bets on whether “star crossed lovers” Katie Moreau of Nova Scotia will wed the young Irishman who fell for her while on a flight from Barcelona to Dublin.

The betting company Paddy Power calls the tale of “Canadian beauty” Moreau and Jamie Kelly of Galway “the greatest Irish love story since (the film) P.S. I Love You.”

The couple was to have their first date Wednesday night. Moreau’s dad Gordie hadn’t yet heard Thursday morning how that dinner went, but was hoping to Skype with his daughter later in the day.

They went to the city of Waterford, about 100 kilometres southwest of Dublin, and took a surfing lesson, then went shopping, out for dinner and to hear a band.

Kelly said he and Moreau share similar interests and a similar sense of humour and “she’s a very good-looking girl.”

Moreau said Kelly is easy to talk with “and he’s very good-looking.”

And the gentleman said they shared a “very passionate” kiss goodnight.

Meanwhile, Paddy Power said the odds are 20-to-one the couple will get married, five-to-two that Kelly will move to Canada and three-to-one that Moreau will move to Ireland.

It says the odds are fifty-to-one that Michael O’Leary, CEO of Ryanair — the airline on which the couple met — will attend the wedding.

“You’re kidding!” laughed Gordie Moreau when contacted at home in Riverport Thursday to see if he knew betting had opened on his daughter’s romantic future.

“Some people will bet on anything,” he said.

Not him, however.

“I am not going to bet on her future. Somebody else can make a buck off it,” he said stalwartly.

“He’s just lucky she agreed to see him. She could have been very embarrassed by it all.”

Kelly was reportedly “smitten” by Moreau after he invited her to sit beside him on their flight. He started a social media campaign to find her after he lost sight of her at the airport, using the hashtags #loveatfirstflight and #findKatie.

A Twitter campaign took off, the two found each other and were featured on an Irish radio show.

“I suppose it’s a story that’s basically captured two nations,” said Feilim Mac An Iomaire, public relations manager of Paddy Power. He said the couple’s story is “non-stop on the radio and all over the papers every day.”

And he said, “as an Irishman, I’m very happy for what Jamie has done. He’s done as much for Ireland as Colin Farrell did in his heyday and we can all only benefit from that.”

Kelly, 24, has just graduated with his degree in information systems management and Moreau, 27, is about to enter the final year of her master’s degree in social work at the University of Toronto, specializing in gerontology.

Her plan had been to move to Spain after she graduates next year. Her father said now they’ll just sit back and see what happens. “If it works, it works,” he said of the couple’s relationship.

He described his daughter as “a very nice girl, very personable too and very attractive.”

Her recently acquired tan in Spain meant she was glowing before she even met Kelly, her dad said.

“And if you like somebody who talks, she’s your girl. She has her opinions and she tells you them,” Moreau said.

Meanwhile, Mac An Iomaire acknowledged Paddy Power’s bets “are a little tongue in cheek,” although the company has taken bets on relationships before.

“But normally we reserve that for the Kim Kardashians and Kanye Wests of the world, so they are being held in esteemed company here,” he said.

Canadians are not able to place bets with the company.

Meanwhile, Moreau and Kelly told the Irish radio host they’re not sure where their relationship will go. They spent the day together Thursday visiting the Dublin Writers Museum, celebrating the lives of Robert Burns, Robert Louis Stevenson and Sir Walter Scott.

Moreau returns to Nova Scotia today but the couple plans to stay in contact.